


Contact

by kittypann



Category: Red vs Blue, Rooster Teeth, rvb - Fandom
Genre: Other, RvB13 Spoilers, rvb, rvb13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 22:34:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5982952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittypann/pseuds/kittypann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set just after RVB13 finale.<br/>What if the reds and blues didn't make it back?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Contact

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this literally ten minutes after the RVB13 finale, and I forgot to ever upload it. My girlfriend asked me what I thought was going to happen if everyone was dead, so I wrote this.

“Tucker! Extraction is on the way, just try to-“  
  
“Wash! We-“  
  
The end of Tucker’s message was drowned out by a sickening melody of cracking, creaking, crunching and tearing. The pelican span out of the air, knocked with the force of Chairman Hargrove’s helicarrier tearing in two, nose-diving towards a ground barely visible through a windshield full of flames. By the time the pilot managed to pull it level the helicarrier – or at least what could be glimpsed from between the rolling crowds of grey smoke – was spinning back to Chorus.  
  
“ _TUCKER!_ ” The sound was less of a scream and more the gurgling noise Agent Washington might manage to make if he were being choked.  
  
“ _EPSILON,_ ” Carolina screeched in unison. When the radio spat out nothing but stomach-churning static in response the freelancer spluttered more furiously and desperately than perhaps anyone had ever screamed their own name, “CHURCH!”  
  
No response.  
  
Wash didn’t so much run to the pilot’s cabin as fall, Carolina close at his shoulder. He shouted for the reds and blues, eyes frantically scanning the cabin for a radio that might be sounding out inappropriate euphemisms or poorly timed gags. Beneath him, the pilot, in a desperate attempt to remain calm, clutched the radio in a shaking hand and croaked out unanswered message after message.  
  
“Are we still transmitting?” Wash asked her, leaning over her controls and scanning the falling helicarrier for any sign of the Reds and Blues.  
  
“Yes, we’re still- there’s no respo-“  
  
\---  
_Today is a good day to die._  
\---  
  
Lieutenant Palomo was the first to reach the door of the pelican, damn near tearing it off its hinges as it hit the ground. Lieutenants Bitters, Andersmith and Jensen were mere centimetres behind.  
  
“What was that?!” Palomo was screeching, trying his best to storm past Wash onto the craft. “Captain! That was awesome! But scary! What the hell! You fucking terrified-“  
  
Wash barely had it in him to push Palomo out the way as he exited the vehicle. Carolina placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder, forcing him away from the ship. Palomo opened his mouth to speak, glancing between the freelancers and the all-too-quiet airship. The reason for the silence clicked into place in his mind before a sound had even escaped his throat and the lieutenant stumbled into the pelican. Smith reached out and placed his hand on his comrade’s back, while Bitters and Jensen hung back, eyes locked on the pilot stumbling out of the pelican.  
  
“We didn’t- we haven’t- the recovery... we still need to search the wreckage,” the pilot announced, stepping out beside them. There was little optimism in her voice.  
  
\---  
  
Wash was cold, looking out at the crowd of Chorusians left, at those who hadn’t been crushed or executed by the Mantis units. He, the Honorary Blue, the trainer and the friend, was expected to step out there and explain it all. To make their sacrifice sound like that’s what it was- _sacrifice_ , not stone cold murder, not another family lost. No - Wash wasn’t cold, he was freezer burnt. There was no comfort in Carolina’s shoulder brushing his, nor any in the Lieutenant’s at his back. He looked at the woman beside him, the woman who had lost her family too many times to count, and knew she felt the same.  
  
He stepped out in front of that crowd and had no idea how to begin.  
  
“Hello,” he managed. His breath was steady. There was static in his ears – not the radio static soldiers were used to, but the kind of static that made a man feel like he was standing beside himself. Head static. The crowd fell silent. “I’m Agent Washington. I guess you knew that, probably, and that’s not what I’m here to say. I guess I’m here to offer an explanation. And honestly? I don’t have one. Not a good enough one. The Reds and Blues- they weren’t the best men, but they were good men.”  
  
“They were great men,” spat Bitters, stepping out of line behind Wash and up to his side.  
  
“They were great men,” Wash agreed. Lieutentant Bitters must have lost his fair share of great men in Hargrove’s war, he thought. “And their sacrifice-“  
  
“Was bullshit!” Palomo called, throwing off his helmet and stepping up to Wash. “It was bullshit!”  
  
Wash, whose mission here was to comfort the men, to assure them things would be okay, that they were for the best, could say nothing in response to the Lieutenant’s outburst. He could say nothing because he agreed. It was bullshit. It was bullshit that Hargrove was still out there; it was bullshit that Epsilon hadn’t contacted them through any of the wreckage equipment that was still semi-functional; it was bullshit that they couldn’t get deep enough into the twisted hunk of metal yet to pull out their men. It was all bullshit. He couldn’t respond, but he didn’t need to, because Palomo was stepping in front of him, his face red with rage and pain and the bitter taste of _bullshit_ in his mouth, shouting out to the men he’d fought against and fought with for so long.  
  
“It was bullshit!” he was shouting. “The Reds and Blues- fuck that! They weren’t Reds and Blues! They were our men! _Our_ Captains!”  
  
He choked out that last word. Jensen, behind him, mustered the courage to shout an encouraging ‘ _yeah!_ ’. It spurred him on.  
  
“They fucking saved us so many times. Not even- not even just from each other, and God that sounds fucking lame, but from ourselves, too! You think I’d have anything to shoot for without Lavernius Tucker? No! They were our men, and they had names! They weren’t just Reds and Blues – they had _names_!”  
  
Bitters, beside him, stirred, and from the crowd emerged a bandaged Matthews, elbowing his way to the front of the men. With weak voice he managed to scream out, “ _DEXTER GRIF!_ ”  
  
“Dick Simmons!” screamed the girls from Simmons’ red team in response.  
  
Soldiers stepped forward screaming names until they’d heard them all. Dexter Grif. Dick Simmons. Franklin Delano Donut. Sarge. Lopez. Frank Dufresne. Michael J. Caboose. Lavernius Tucker. Carolina stepped up to say, firmly and finally, “ _Epsilon._ ”  
  
Their men.  
  
“It was bullshit,” Palomo called, exhausted, “and we’re not going to forget that. It was bullshit, but it happened, and we have to fucking deal with that. We’re not going to dwell on it, but we’re not going to fucking forget them.”  
  
The crowd screamed, and shot the sky, and cheered, and sobbed, and the group of soldiers in front of them turned away and stumbled back to their bunks, exhausted and unsatisfied.  
  
\---  
_Fuck that._  
\---


End file.
